Of course YOU'D never schedule an upgrade over Christmas, but this is the time for fun and for fiction.
'Twas the night of the upgrade, and all ‘cross the Net
Not a user was surfing (‘cept one named Annette).
The backups were placed by the server with care,
In hopes that the upgrade would cause no lost hair;
The admins were nestled all snug in their beds;
Their Samsung VR’s strapped on tight to their heads;
My Engineer’s Toolset and laptop in hand,
I’d just settled down for an upgrade quite bland.
When out from my speaker there came such a clatter,
I started a Ping Sweep to see what was the matter.
Away to Orion I keyboarded fast,
And checked out the syslog for what happened last.
The news was all good, and the upgrade near done,
It proved that my Toolset was just having fun,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature Microsoft logo so clear,
With a funky new driver so lively and Zen,
I knew in a moment it must be V 10!
More rapid than eagles the messages came,
I whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, DDos! now, Trojan! Melissa and Wyrms!
On, Klez and NTP-123! You Germs!!
Stay out of my network, my Next Gen Firewall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As Admins that to South Padre Isle may fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, flip to the sky;
So off to the neighbors this malware all flew
With a payload of garbage, and Microsoft too—
And then, in a twinkling, I saw from aloof
The warnings and e-mails from phishes that spoof.
They tried through the wireless, which was thankfully down,
They tried through the e-mail but met with a frown.
Our Next-Gen and AV and ISE and our NAC,
Quietly worked and protected our back.
A packet arrived for dst one-twenty-seven,
‘Twas dumped in the bucket and left there to leaven.
The certs that were broken all made me guffaw
For I’d dumped One for Two, and their types were all SHA.
Even UPS serial lines were protected,
And the bad guys’ bad traffic had all been rejected;
Though he hammered and pounded, I showed him my teeth,
And the smoke that it caused was my happy bequeath;
I found he was relaying all ‘round the world
But his D-DOS was failing, and round him it swirled.
I finished the upgrade and tested it true,
And I laughed when I thought of his frustrated crew;
All hoping to fool me with MS V Ten
While I blew in their eyes my pepper Cayenne.
I spoke not a word, but went straight back to work,
And wrote to my peers of the sneaky old jerk,
And flipping a finger that he couldn’t see,
I packed up my laptop and pulled my goatee;
And started the Prius and I called to my gnome,
And away then I flew down the road to my home.
But I rolled down the window to shout with my might—
“My upgrade is done, and the network’s alright!”
May your holiday work schedule be light!
Rick S.